Animation WIP : The joy of art

#1

Hi there folks,

I have been working on an animation and it is at a point now where I would like to show it to people. Any crits are welcome.

Things I know about already:

Problems with feet sliding and passing through the floor

Hands passing through hips

It is only hardware rendered at the mo.

… I am sure that there are more things than that but I can’t think of them at time of writing.

Click here to download (around 4 meg)

Or copy this into your web browser:

http://www.hash.com/users/milos/animtest.mov

Big thanks to Pequod for hosting the animation, giving some expert advice and generally being a great guy.

Be as harsh as you like - your blows make me stronger mmwah-hahahaaaaa

#2

Nice, nice . I like it.
Creative character that goes well with the theme of the animation. ( She looks like modern art )

Now the critique .
FIRST IMPRESSIONS :

  1. What is the 'story of this animation ? I gathered that she was in an art museum and did not like the art there, but fell ‘head over heels’ for the piece that looked like her.
    What is the punchline ?

  2. The only thing that bothered me about the animation ( besides what you already stated ) was the point where she sees the painting of ( herself ? )
    She raises her arm as if to check the time.
    This was distracting to me the first time I watched it, since your mind automatically second guesses what will happen next in an animation.

  3. O.K. , so one more thing : I notice the camera seems to zoom backwards roughly at the end of the animation.
    The camera seems to actually rise a little, as if it was not put on a path that was straight.

I look forward to seeing the finished animation.

( I think her face is great. The expressions are ‘there dude’. )

P.S. Do you know anything about Skycast ? No-one has responded to my post here at CGTalk.

Thanks

#3

I keep watching it over and over.
I find myself laughing at the expression on her face after she sees the first painting. ( the look down scene where she frowns )
Don’t change it. It’s great.

A few other suggestions :

The ceiling height in the first scene : If your intention was to make the room look emense, you might consider moving the character closer to the camera ( maybe even have her enter the frame with a little DOF to grab your attention to her as she walks towards the paintings.
Right now, there is a lot of empty space above her, and she gets lost easily.

The first camera move ( the spiral move ) seems fancy … but sorry … sorry … honestly seems not so good. To me, the camera move would look better cut to half this length ( and without so much of a distance to zoom up to her ).
If you want to keep the spiral move, you might consider having the camera tilted at an odd angle, and gradually going up right.
I see this camera move a lot in commercials when a person gets bewildered. A lot of times the camera will also zoom right up to the persons face in fish eye as the person tilts their head and says " HUH ?".
"
Right now, the move really looks too mechanical.

I like the character. A lot.

Are you going to model lights in the scene above the paintings ? ( this would be a way to do some neat lighting .

#4

I really enjoyed this and can see with some limited sound effects that it would be a really great animation.

#5

Thanks for the comments!

Vegan,

Some interesting points there. I am not an expert with camera direction so tips there are usefull. I think I will keep the first shot pretty much the same as I wanted something extreem. I will look into the other things though - particularly the thing about looking at a watch.

Quote: “What is the 'story of this animation ? I gathered that she was in an art museum and did not like the art there, but fell ‘head over heels’ for the piece that looked like her.”

Errr… that is the punch line… Sorry, maybe not the most climactic ending but it is all that I had. It was more a vehicle for learning the craft than anything. I am just glad that people get the story at all.

At the moment, the lighting is done with my own rig which simply runs a light allong a path within the motion blur time (25%). I have a diffuse light from above and a sharper sun also. I will add fill lights as I see fit for each camera shot. Different parts of her have different amounts of ambiance. I wanted to keep the geometry really simple so I didn’t have to worry about render times. However, I like the idea of making it look like she is made of solid lumps of stuff which are mesteriously floating so I may have some work to do there.

Skylights are pretty cool. I tried some out a while back but don’t know much. They are less apropriate for indoor lighting where I prefer to hav more direct controll.

Remember that you can get some quite nice lighting by making a bulb large and using multipass.

3Dkiwi:

I am looking forward to doing some sound effects. I’m not sure how cartoony I want to go - I will probably keep it simple. I play bass so maybe I will make a tune for it.

#6

Very nice and original. The expressions are quite good, you’ve succeeded in making her look alive, which is a neat trick :slight_smile:

I’d say her reactions are a little excessive though, maybe you could tone down some of them, like the fear of the dog/monster - it’s well done but the thing has been in her field of vision for a while so it’s not convincing that she be frightened by it, maybe an expression of disgust “averting her eyes” would be better.

Also rather than a mad dash towards the picture she could adopt the pose she takes up at the end of the dash and walk towards the painting in that way - when you are looking at something you like or amazes you you want to “savour it” by approaching slowly to take in all the details.

Great stuff overall :slight_smile:

#7

I didn’t mean to be offensive. You asked for an honest critique.

I also wanted to add that I haven’t animated one frame of animation ( except for the never ending one second test animation type of thing )

The only thing that I know for sure is that I don’t much of anything for sure.

Again, I wanted to add that I really like your character. She made me laugh .

Well done.

#8

Hi John. I love the head design. It’s very original, like a living piece of art. Talking about animation, I would sugest you to work more the timing. The storyline is interesting but it could be more clear with better transitions between actions. Regarding poses, all them work fine for me. It’s only my opinion. I hope that helps. Regards.

#9

Hi again,

I actually wanted more extream reactions in places. I was aiming for a lot of whackyness but without the laws of physics being broken. I can see how the reaction to the painting might look odd though. I was hoping that the glance before the surprise would help there (a double take effect). Maybe I have to work on it a little more.

No offense taken:) I am sorry if I came across that way. Your comments are all welcome and can only help.

Thanks for the compliment. The art look was what I was after. I agree that the animation is a little choppy. I find it hard animating and directing and getting it all to fit. I expect that I will be playing around a lot more with it.

#10

Hello, John!

Neat project! A droll comment on the modern art scene! I got the point right away.

Here are my two pennies:

When she presses on, from the first painting, she glances up once … and then, on a second glance, is horrified by the horror of the second painting. The first glance is too subtle, I think. For one thing, it does not grab the viewer’s eyes, for the camera is swinging around and the lady is walking along along the left margin of the screen. Too many things are moving, and the character is temporarily marginalized, and so the impact of the first raise of her head is “watered down.” My advice is to get rid of the first glance. Make her continue walking along with her head down, in deep thought (excellently done, BTW). Postpone her horrorstruck take. At her first proper look at the monstrosity, she should throw up her hands.

The second bit of advice concerns her dash across the room. I think you should keep her arms up, elbows bent, as she sprints to her favorite painting.

I’m looking forward to seeing more! :thumbsup: Keep us posted!

Sincerely,

Carl Raillard

#11

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